


not bad, just weird

by auroralmelody, procrastinatingbookworm



Category: Lucifer (Comic), The Sandman (Comics)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Friendship, M/M, Relationship Negotiation, Tea, also featuring:, and the other partner has the same expectations of the relationship, but not completely different, it's hard to maintain an established relationship, just slightly different, well... formerly established relationship, when one partner is completely different from when they started, you see the problem here?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-24 02:54:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15620943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auroralmelody/pseuds/auroralmelody, https://archiveofourown.org/users/procrastinatingbookworm/pseuds/procrastinatingbookworm
Summary: Lucifer Morningstar was in love with Morpheus. And Morpheus was in love with him. And then the Dream Lord... changed. Transformed. And now everything is different. Well... not everything. Lucifer is still in love with him. But isn't that worse?Maybe, or maybe not, because this new Dream is still in love with him too.





	not bad, just weird

**Author's Note:**

> Last year, I read the Sandman comics for the first time. I went exclaiming to my friends, and auroralmelody proceeded to buy a bookset for their own, and get more into it than I am. Now, here we are, with a four thousand word collaboration. I love my friends. - procrastinatingbookworm
> 
> i owe u my life for this but also i'm down over $350 in my bank account thanks to you. i love u dang it - auroralmelody

Lucifer notices all the things that are different about him.

The things he's not sure he likes and the things — these realizations accompanied by a guilty lurch — he likes _better_.

Lucifer struggles with these, because they are not necessarily _bad —_

Just weird.

The way this version of Dream carries himself more steadily, clings less to rules and more to actual _values_ , the way he neatly cleans up the messes Morpheus left behind.

(Lucifer is just… unnerved, really. Because as unstable as Morpheus was, Lucifer was unstable too, and that was part of their connection.)

The way he's more respectful, the way he thinks before he acts, the grace he's gained and the way his anger looks: cold; not a tantrum behind a mask of power.

The way he dresses is more in control, beauty and grace in crisp white robes that hug his slender form, instead of shrouding himself and hiding in soft drapes of black.

His voice is… it's the same but it's… lighter, more calm.

(His hair is just as soft as it was before, though it is the color of dandelion fluff instead of black.)

The sense of self-awareness. The way he says his own name. The little tiny scar on the edge of his lip from some long forgotten battle — _that's_ not there anymore, either.

All the tiny things that Lucifer didn't notice until they changed —

The way he speaks to his siblings is different too, which unnerves just about everyone from Death to Matthew to Lucien. He's only met them, after all, but he's known them for eternity…

Lucifer can see Death trying, trying to remain that person Dream can rely on, and while it's true that Dream trusts her, he also needs her less. She’s still trying to figure out how to comfort him.

 

Lucifer struggles because Dream, back when he was Morpheus, promised he would still love him, when he changed, and he does. But he shows it differently. This Dream is far less inclined to cling; he initiates contact with more ease but less frequency.

The little shining emerald hanging around his neck feels like a taunt. It's the first thing Lucifer removes when he undresses him. The first thing tossed aside.

Lucifer knows that Dream still loves him. But what he worries about is that this Dream — this Dream doesn't _need_ him. This Dream fusses, but doesn't panic, when he leaves on some adventure. He smiles and kisses him for luck.

Lucifer feels himself clinging more often, just to make up for it.

He worries, for the first time, that he's being a hindrance.

On a daily basis, anyway; he's obviously had his obnoxious moments before, but sometimes, he feels less needed. Still loved but less _required._

Because Morpheus? Was a _wreck_.

Morpheus, not introspective enough to be byronic but certainly _byronesque,_ was at once so rigid and rule-abiding that one touch from his brother (Destruction's other name is _change_ ) snapped him in two, and yet such an absolute wild card that he made enemies (and allies, but more often enemies) left and right simply by showing up, billowing robes folding around him that obscured him even from himself.  

He had rocketed between support systems as fast as possible. And the second he’d recovered from the last one, the last disaster, he’d find someone else. He'd lose the connection with one person and just _break_ , and never learned from it at all.

(Somewhere before Dream's death, Lucifer realizes just how damned the Dream Lord is, but he doesn't really understand what’s _happening_ until later. Doesn’t see the inexorable spiral downwards until it’s complete, or at least until it’s far, _far_ too late.)

Lucifer had been long-standing because they _worked_ , and that they had found each other now seemed less of an unlikely event and more an inevitable collision. There are only so many people in the universe, and fewer immortals.

Somehow, they still work. Although it’s different.

Again: not bad. Just weird.

Lucifer perches on the arm of his throne instead of on his lap now, because this Dream is more relaxed, not needing constant reassurance. This Dream invites him to come back to his place because it is comfortable, not because he must be there.

He loves Dream to pieces, damn it, and he's _scared,_ damn _that_ most of all, about this change.

This Dream neatly cleans up the messes Morpheus made. He apologizes. He _apologizes_. Without fanfare and with little difficulty, for the mistakes he makes, or _made_.

All in all, he's less of a damn drama queen.

And to a lot of people that's good. Hell, to _Dream,_ that's good.

Lucifer just… isn't as certain how to deal with Dream straight up _telling_ him all of his feelings, only a little choked up. And Lucifer thinks, _yes, this is… healthier, I suppose, and it's… nice that neither of us is crying._

And it's not... bad. It's just different. Weird.

And Lucifer sees exactly what Morpheus meant when he said that he would always love him, but perhaps not always be who Lucifer loved.

And he was right, damn him. He was right, because Lucifer would never have fallen in love with this version of Dream.

Lucifer fell in love with the wreck of a being who was closest to his elder sister because he felt more at home among the dead than the living, who couldn't come to terms with eternity, who loved with everything he had and acted foolishly because of it, who calculated his own death centuries in advance and then walked unfalteringly into it. He never would have fallen in love with Dream, had he not been Morpheus.

Lucifer would never have fallen in love with this Dream, except that he feels that he's changed too. He's adapted just as much, so he can be in love with him still. Natural selection of the way they interlock.

And Dream still makes him smile, in different ways. He still holds him like he's the most precious thing in the world, but instead of a full-body cling, it's delicate and loving and kind. He still has the same way of picking things up, holding them to the light in long piano-player fingers, that same curious expression.

Lucifer says _I love you_ very quietly for the first time to this Dream when Dream is telling him stories, when Dream has an arm around him, and Lucifer feels safe and tired and warm. The fireplace crackles before them, lit by Lucifer’s hand (he is still the Morningstar, he always has been) and burning low. Dream says it back so easily, strokes his hair, kisses him softly and caresses his cheek. And like always, despite the flames, Lucifer shivers at his touch.

And Lucifer thinks, no. This is not the same Dream he fell in love with. But maybe, maybe. Maybe there's something better about this. Maybe two spiraling comets crashing against each other is all well and good, but two moons sharing an orbit is better. More stable, in the long run. Orbiting one another in resonance.

It's calmer. Not as soft, not melting together, dissolving in the heat of their own desperation. Dream is kinder, but firmer, and they’re both so calm it makes the Devil nervous. But no storm comes to follow it. Lucifer catches Dream looking at him with that softness in his eyes and on his face and he knows it's okay.

But it's not easy to change.

One night, or what passes for night in a place where time doesn't exist, Lucifer sits on the kitchen floor with Death, in her realm, because her realm sometimes looks like an apartment, with a tiled kitchen floor, and an island to lean against, and wine to share.

And they just talk. And cry. And talk some more, and the wine doesn't help with the crying but it helps with the talking, so all six bottles are gone by the end of the night, while the rest of the world dreams, and they’ve given up on both eyeliner and composure.

 

The frustration is sometimes unbearable. So, sometimes, Lucifer goes up onto the balcony and sits on the railing, feet dangling into what might as well be an abyss. He is not afraid of falling.

Dream figures out after a while that it's when Lucifer spots something that's really, truly different, and tells him _I know_ , and _I’m sorry._

It's the apologies that get to him, really.

The ease with which this man who once left a lover in Hell for ten _thousand_ years out of wounded pride _apologizes._

Lucifer smiles a little weakly because it’s good, but it hurts too, because how much else has changed that he is yet to discover?

Lucifer misses the clutter of Dream's old chambers. Everything is very clean and it's _weird_. That's what he says to Death, waving the wine bottle about. _It's not bad, it's just so damnably weird._

 _Yeah_ , she says. _I know what you mean._

She looks a little different now, because as much as it is her function to take a life she can still grieve like any other. She is still Dream’s sister, and she still wants to make sure he’s taken care of. She looks… tired. Lucifer thinks he might, too.

They both feel as though they’ve failed, despite the fact that the seeds were planted too long ago for them to have had any way of stopping it, or perhaps even to have known.

 

(Lucifer _refuses_ to use the name _Daniel_. It’s bitter on his tongue, so horribly bitter and wrong that he can’t, just _can’t_ call his lover the name of the human who hosts him. Or something. Lucifer isn’t quite sure of the whole mechanism. He thinks Dream — Morpheus, too, once or twice — explained it to him, several times over, always patient, but he still isn’t convinced he understands.

He knows, though, that it could not have happened without years of preparation, dominoes set up in a neat line by Morpheus himself. He refuses the word _suicide_ , too, because Dream _isn’t dead_ , but he has no other word for it, for the elaborate planning that led to the only way out: through — no, _to_ — the sunless lands; the only way a concept, a dream, an _Endless_ , could _end_.)

 

It’s awkward, at first, to touch. To even meet his eyes, to even look at this similar-but-different being. It feels like something of a betrayal. So does looking away.

Lucifer drags Dream on top of him, taking away the emerald as fast as he can manage, undoing his sash, allowing the fabric to fall open and sliding his hand beneath his robes, around his back to pull him closer. He is less certain, now, because Dream takes control with such grace and less desperation, and it’s _different_.

It’s not bad, it’s just _weird._

It’s what Lucifer keeps repeating to himself. He’s not sure where the phrase comes from, but it hardly matters, especially when this Dream kisses him, and unbuttons his shirt. Lucifer is hardly one to be shy of his appearance, but it feels like the first time.

Dream is now more steady, more gentle, firmer, and he’ll naturally take control of the situation efficiently, without the bluster that Morpheus always employed.

Lucifer undresses Dream in seconds. Dream takes minutes, even when Lucifer is barely clothed as is, peeling away each layer, touching and kissing the skin beneath with fondness that borders on what Lucifer would call _worship_ if the word didn’t make him ill.

And when he’s finished, and they’re both in nothing but their skin, Lucifer clings, because he needs the contact, craves it, even now.

Dream’s clothes are different (Lucifer discards them, kicks them under the bed), and his hair is different (but still soft when Lucifer curls his fingers into it) and his eyes are different and that damned jewel on his chest is different but his skin is still the same.

His eyes. To anyone else, they might be identical, but Lucifer has always been good at reading people, and the eyes are the windows to the soul. He has seen many souls, dripping with power, and yet their eyes are the same when they are stripped to the bone. So he knows there's a change.

 _Do the Endless have souls?_ he asks Death. But they're five bottles into the six they have, so she doesn't have a coherent answer to give. Instead she speaks of Hell and Heaven, and they both forget the question when Lucifer wonders aloud whether his bitter oath to someday bring Dream to ruin actually stuck, and they end up in tears.

Lucifer doesn't forget the eyes, though.

Morpheus’ soul was a guttering candle flame. Dream’s (he will not call him Daniel he will _not_ ) is more solid, although solid _what_ he can't be sure.

Dream tells him he's beautiful, and gives him that smile, and Lucifer sometimes forgets just how much he _needs_ that smile, even though it's different like everything else. The skin is the same smooth porcelain, but it’s unblemished now; there isn't that one line at the corner that pales whiter still, the stretch of scar tissue.

The eyes are the same but there's a different being behind them, and it's not that Lucifer can't bear it. He can bear a lot. It’s just.

It’s just.

Weird.

  
(Not that it is easy for Dream, either. On the surface he seems to have none of Morpheus’ flaws, none of the irrational anger or selfish bitterness or the twist of self-destruction… but under the pale mask there are the occasional flashes of… fury, of the old rage, of the old despair, like veins of obsidian through crystal. He is still learning, still struggling to take up the mantle sometimes, trying to shine as his own star instead of falling within Morpheus’s shadow.

Lucifer, bitter, but smiling, relates. Wingbeat by metaphorical wingbeat, they drag themselves away from what they were.)  


Sometimes Lucifer does not simply gets frustrated: sometimes it goes far beyond that. It becomes him racing to the edges of the Dreaming and _breaking_ , clutching at his chest because his _heart_ hurts and he wants to tear it from his chest, locked in a duel with himself. Previously he had been unused to injury without blood, but there’s nothing there. Nothing but the memory and temptation of Morpheus telling him _I would not blame you if you left_ , or the realization of how Morpheus had promised he would treasure him through any change, but Lucifer had been unable to return it.

Of all the people, of all the places, of all the reasons Lucifer has betrayed someone - he feels that was the worst treachery.

(Lucifer had dropped to his knees and begged him, once, in a muddy garden, thrown aside ten billion years of pride and begged, knelt and bowed and _pleaded_ , for Morpheus to save himself. That had been a betrayal, in Dream’s eyes, to ask him to come away with him, when Lucifer knew better. But the idea of abandonment, that was hardly treachery, not to Morpheus. That, that was just a possible consequence of his… transformation.)

And sometimes it's worse than that; sometimes, sometimes he makes a hasty excuse to escape from Dream’s chambers. He stands in the hallway and whistles until Matthew flutters to him and guides him silently through the shifting halls of the heart of the Dreaming. He stands, reeling, in the gallery, curling his fingers around the silver ankh in its frame. He barely needs to ask.

He likens it to a teenager on the side of the road, at a phone booth, barefoot, with probably all of their clothes, calling a friend to pick them up after a party.

And Death is always there, with a cup of tea or a bottle of wine, letting him sleep off the pain on her couch, or sharing it with him, crying on the kitchen tiles by his side.

Because she knows. She understands.

 _I saw you at the Wake,_ Lucifer said, once. _You spoke beautifully._

She had replied, _What’s the use of being Death for eternity if you don’t know what to say when someone’s passed?_

But though she’s contented herself with eternity in the long run, she still finds importance in the minute, in the dying of ideas, in her _baby brother_ methodically planning his own death for _centuries._

Lucifer doesn’t think either of them will ever be over that.

“You see,” she says, fingers curled around a mug of something that smells herbal and steams. “It’s so much easier to balance when it’s not personal.”

She’s perched on the counter, and Lucifer is on the floor, leaning against the island, head resting on the cabinet because the fog on his mind is too heavy to lift.

“Deaths, you mean?”

“Yes. It’s my function. It’s who I am, Lucifer, personal or not, but it’s… it’s.” She looks down. “This time it _is_ personal,” she says, softly. Her voice doesn’t exactly break, but there’s an exhale that’s not supposed to be there.

“It’s not because you had to take him,” Lucifer says, quiet. “It’s because he made a damn show of it.”

She doesn’t reply.

“There’s plenty of ways to off yourself. Even as an immortal. Ways that don’t require centuries of planning or spilled family blood or everlasting repercussions. But he wanted an out he could take anytime, because he’s a _fucking coward._ ” Lucifer takes a deep breath. “It was elaborate, it was so elaborate that he forgot what pieces he’d set in place by the time the third act rolled around. So it’s not because you had to take him. You had to take your sister, before. It’s because he set up a string of dominoes and made us watch as they fell.”

Death purses her lips. “I guess that’s one way of looking at it. I was a real bitch back when I took Despair, so I don’t know about _that_ , but yes. I think that… I think… I watched him set up the dominoes too, and I just… didn’t _realize…_ that’s what he was doing until… later.” She sips her drink, almost nervous, like she has made a confession.

“You know,” Lucifer muses. “I don’t know if he realized either.”

Death hangs her head. “No, I don’t think he did,” she murmurs, quietly, drawing one leg up onto the counter, resting her forehead to her knee and closing her eyes. A soft, broken whisper. “I really don’t think he did.”

He laughs at that, an ugly sound, half snort and half sob. “He’s an idiot. Was an idiot. He’s much… less, now.”

“Time will tell,” Death says, with a little wry smile, under her tears.

“He keeps _apologizing._ It comes easy to him. I can’t get over that.” Pause. “I don’t want to move, so you come to me.”

Death looks at him. “We should probably _both_ move somewhere more comfortable. I’m still skeptical on the practicality of my kitchen as the prime spot for a breakdown.”

“It’s tradition, though.”

That gets something resembling a genuine chuckle out of both of them. “Can’t argue with that.” Death doesn’t stand, just puts her weight on the ground in such a way that she can slide down on the kitchen island next to Lucifer, still holding her tea. She sips it, holding it in both hands.

“It’s not bad,” Lucifer insists, tearful but unwavering.

“Just weird?” Death suggests, letting out a little half-sob half-laugh and pressing the back of her wrist to her mouth.

“Yeah.” There’s no laughter in his voice, just an exhausted determination. He lets his head drop from where it’s leaning on the cabinet to Death’s shoulder. Death passes the tea to her other hand, wrapping her arm around his back, briefly tousling his hair, and then offers the drink to him.

There’s something about a mug of tea, or anything warm, that makes one want to wrap their fingers around it. Lucifer obliges the compulsion, feeling heat prick his fingers. A few sips, the heat racing down his throat and pooling in his chest. By the third mouthful, he’s already too far gone to taste it.

“Careful,” Death says, gently, amused, and reaching for it. “It’s hot.”

Lucifer holds it out of her reach. “Nuh-uh.”

Quietly, privately, Lucifer hates how easy this is, even easier than being with Dream. It's a simple friendship, built on grief, mutual caring for the entity who's played such a part in their lives. Built on the shame at the perplexed unhappiness on Dream’s face, seeing them in mourning.

(There are things he will never tell her, that even wine and tea and kindness could not coax out. He will never tell her that the single time he begged was for something he knew already was impossible.)

Death growls at him and, because she's slightly shorter, gives up trying to reclaim her drink, instead leaning against him. He puts an arm around her in return, squeezes her, and sips her tea.

“I do love him,” Lucifer says, after a while. “Differently, but I still do.”

“Differently how?”

“Differently in lots of ways. Softer, I think,” he admits. He closes his eyes. “I have nothing but metaphors.”

“I can listen to metaphors. I'm literally a concept, Lucifer. All ears.”

Lucifer chuckles, his voice damp. “Meteors. Unchecked, disaster-bound, colliding on downward spirals.”

“Now or then?”

“Oh, definitely then.”

“... And now?”

“Hopefully? Moons sharing an orbit. Or perhaps orbiting each other.”

Death nods, curls up a little against him. Melancholy settles into the silence. She strokes his hair and Lucifer closes his eyes, breathes out.

“Are you going to be okay? With him, I mean?”

Lucifer’s eyes flutter half-open. His voice is low, tired. “You mean am I going to stay with him?”

“I suppose.”

“Yes. Yes.”

Death nods. She's grateful to have someone to talk to. Someone else who cares for Dream, someone else on level ground.

After a while, Lucifer whispers, “I think... _I_ am a coward for it.”

“I think it’s brave, to stay.”

Lucifer looks at her for a long time. “I have built a… dependence upon him. And while it was once… mutual… now it is not. I am loved, but I am not… needed.”

“He stays with you because he cares for you, not because he has to, then,” Death replies.

“I know, and it’s not… it’s not bad. It’s better, really. It’s nice, it feels… meaningful. But… different.”

“It’s not cowardice to be afraid.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t need to.”

He looks haunted for a moment, before his expression breaks into a laugh.

“Maybe you’re right, Lady Death. Maybe you’re right.”

 

What he doesn’t know is that he is not the only one who goes to Death. Dream has visited her too, after Lucifer has left, curling his fingers around her sigil and asking, quietly, for his sister's help.

She is tired. But she will never refuse.

“I… He clings as though he struggles to keep hold of me. My sister, I think… to him… I am not enough to hold onto.”

Dream closes his eyes, shakes his head, and Death takes his hands.

“Brother,” she says, softly, “he loves you. You're just on slightly different frequencies. Talking past each other. Maybe he clings because he doesn't know how you would expect him to act. You used to reciprocate it. He's frightened, now that you don't.”

“Of course I reciprocate, I love h —”

“ _Yes_ , I _know._ ” She sounds frustrated. “But you express it differently now. And he doesn't know what to do with that.”

“Sometimes I wish for his sake he would leave,” Dream whispers. “It hurts him. I can see it. But I only want him closer.”

“I know, brother. And he doesn't want to leave, so don't ask him to. Just. . .let him know you love him. Ask what he needs from you. Because your needs won't necessarily align anymore.” She wraps her arms around him, and after a moment he returns the embrace.

“I will attempt to do as you say, my sister,” Dream mumbles. It’s in moments like these that she can guiltily relax; this unsure mumbling sounds like her brother. A softer, kinder version of him, but her brother all the same.

“Good,” she admonishes. “You’ll be alright, you two. Just learn to talk to each other, ‘kay?”

She gives the exact same advice to Lucifer.

It seems to help.

 

Dream and Lucifer sit on her couch some time later, together, holding hands and laughing, and when they look at each other there’s adoration in their eyes. They kiss, chaste and happy, and Death smiles as she brings them tea.

 _My work here is done,_ she thinks, smugly, happily, kissing her brother’s temple and ruffling Lucifer’s hair.

It’s not bad.

It’s weird, but they’re immortals; facets of the personifications of concepts in two cases, and a fallen angel in control of his own destiny in the third.

What about their lives _isn’t?_


End file.
